Dating from the 17th century, one of the oldest watering holes on this list. JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis could be found in the back, known as the Rabbit Room, with their writers group, The Inklings. Under its low ceilings and over room-temperature ale, Lewis shared the first drafts of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe here in 1950. Reactions were as tepid as the beer.

This painting from Alisa Burke is a poem from e.e. cummings and is made with…wait for it…shoe polish. Just buy a piece of regular canvas in whatever size you want, prime it with white house paint, and write the quote using the shoe polish. Once it dries, stretch the canvas over stretcher bars (available at a craft store, or use scrap lumber) or frame it.

Does an author’s work define him? The prevailing opinion these days seems to be that the work exists outside of the author- that the writer is in actuality a first reader. I prefer to think of books as an irremovable part of an author, like their bones or blood. Artist John Sokol has translated this into visual art, creating portraits of authors using words from their work.